- Let's head to Pittsboro, where the Carolina Tiger Rescue is giving visitors a chance to learn about some truly remarkable animals and their work to provide them a safe place to call home.

I actually became one of those visitors, and the experience is beyond thrilling.

[upbeat music] - Carolina Tiger Rescue is an accredited sanctuary.

We are a nonprofit located in Pittsboro, North Carolina, with the focus of rescuing wild cats and some other wild animals.

We are rescuing animals that come from roadside zoos where they weren't getting proper care when they get shut down.

We also have animals that people had as private pets.

- So right now, we have 11 species that call Carolina Tiger Rescue their home.

We have carnivores.

We also have some frugivores.

We have some canids as well.

So with that, their care differs, but we can accommodate everybody here, and I feel like we do a pretty good job.

- Open.

- One of the biggest things here is how close you are able to get to those animals.

Sometimes, like people, the first time they are able to get that close to a tiger is, for some of them, a little scary, for some, pretty exciting.

- The Tiger Rescue offers public tours Friday, Saturday, and Sunday all year round, but reservations must be made in advance.

I got to go on a tour with Madison to learn all about the animals and their remarkable stories.

Now, this tiger, as I understand it, has a really special story tied to the Tiger King.

- Yeah, so this is Samar, and he came to us from Tiger King Park, which was a roadside zoo in Oklahoma that, unfortunately, a lot of people are familiar with.

And so they actually got shut down by the federal government, which is pretty rare that it gets to that level.

Essentially, he was evidence that couldn't sit in an evidence room, but once that court case settled and they determined that those animals were definitely not receiving proper care, he became ours, and we are his forever home, just like the rest of our animals, and he will stay here for the rest of his life.

- Samar, do you know your name?

- I know your story.

- This is incredible.

(gentle music) - Speaking of incredible, this year, Tiger Rescue completed their biggest rescue yet.

Five tigers flown all the way from Honduras.

- We are in front of Guru and Amir's enclosure.

So they are two of the five tigers that we rescued from a resort in Honduras.

- They are just beautiful.

- They are our two biggest males.

So they are both about 500 pounds.

Guru's our largest tiger.

- That's heavy!

- Yeah, they're big.

And they're pretty silly, goofy guys.

Amir is a little bit more laid back.

Guru is a little bit more social, so he's more likely to come up to the fence and he talks a lot.

(imitates tiger growling) All right, so we're gonna walk up to our other three Honduras tigers.

So we have our male, Sultan, and then our females, Ira and Debra.

- Debra!

(laughing) - Yep.

Right now, these three are living together, and then the other two males are separate.

We hopefully will reintroduce them someday, but the groups are divided up based on relationships.

And they are happy this way.

The girls definitely run this enclosure, and Sultan is happy to let them run it.

They were living on a resort in Honduras.

They were in a pretty small enclosure, and a new owner took over in 2022, and he very quickly recognized that he did not have the space or the means to provide proper care for these animals.

It was our first international big cat rescue, so we had to get cats out of one country into another.

So it was a long couple of days of travel for these animals.

By the time they got here, they were pretty exhausted, pretty stressed.

Fortunately, they're very social tigers, and they warmed up really quickly, even in our quarantine building, almost immediately.

Seeing them get new things and learning what they love, just getting new experiences that they didn't have before has been pretty fun to watch.

(upbeat music) - Enrichment has definitely been something that is great to see out there with animals, in particular with new animals that we've gotten.

(upbeat music) - Living in captivity gives them more time to feel bored, so they don't have to worry about hunting or patrolling territory.

So we give them enrichment, which is anything that's going to stimulate them mentally and physically.

(upbeat music) So the pools that we give all of our tigers are a form of enrichment.

You might see kegs in there.

Tigers don't drink, but they do like to bat around a keg.

We're an accredited sanctuary, so we have lots of rules that we have to follow, being a non-contact facility, a non-breeding facility, and we are always looking out for their welfare, and we are here for them first.

When visitors leave, I am always, especially with young kids, I always tell them their homework is to just take something that they learned today and tell someone who wasn't here today.

Our biggest lesson is when you know better, you do better.

- I think the biggest thing we kind of say is that this place kind of feels like a home to people.

The animals are definitely a plus, but the people are kind of what keep you here.

- Well, Madison, this is just spectacular.

I've had an amazing time.

Thank you so much for the personal tour.

- Of course, and thanks for coming out.

- Carolina Tiger Rescue is open to visitors by guided tour only, and tickets must be purchased in advance.

To learn more and reserve your spot, visit carolinatigerrescue.org.